You can't keep a good monster down.
On Monday I told you about BDR 32-135, the new Bill Draft Request filed in Carson City that could bring back the $1.8 billion Hollywood Handout.
I called it a zombie bill. Turns out the metaphor's even better (or you might say worse) than I thought.
Because right now, out in actual Hollywood, a real studio is deciding whether to pack up and leave town. And it's telling us everything we need to know about whether Nevada's giveaway ever made sense in the first place.
According to a New York Post article on Tuesday, Paramount CEO David Ellison just gave California's attorney general an ultimatum. Settle the antitrust fight over the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger by October 1, or Paramount starts moving out of state.
The board's already approved it. Ellison's even floated a five-year plan to shift most of the studio's jobs somewhere else entirely.
This is the exact scenario Hollywood Handout supporters have been selling us: A major studio, ready to bolt, looking for a new home, and whichever state offers the best deal wins the jackpot.
So where's Paramount looking?
Georgia. Texas. Tennessee.
Not Nevada.
We're an hour's flight from the Paramount lot. We've got sound stages, desert terrain, mountain backdrops – and a Legislature that just spent a special session arguing about whether to hand Hollywood $1.8 billion to move here.
And when an actual studio actually needs an actual new home, we're not even on the list.
If subsidies were the deciding factor everyone claims, this is the moment Nevada should be in the conversation. We're not. That tells you the subsidy argument was weaker than advertised.
There's a family precedent here too.
Ellison's father, Larry, moved Oracle from California to Texas back in 2020, then on to Tennessee. No $1.8 billion tax credit required. Just lower costs and a friendlier business climate.
If a hard-nosed businessman like Larry Ellison didn't need a giveaway to make that call, why would his son need one to bring Paramount here?
Now, to be fair, let's be precise about what BDR 32-135 actually is.
The bill was filed by the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED), not by my opponent, Senator Dondero Loop.
GOED says this isn't a resurrection of the Hollywood Handout. They're calling it a clean-up of the existing film tax credit statute, nothing more.
But here's the thing about bills in Carson City. Once one gets introduced, it doesn't belong to the person who filed it anymore. It belongs to whoever can get an amendment through committee.
GOED can say this is just clean-up language all they want. But that doesn't stop any legislator from walking BDR 32-135 into committee and amending it into the same $1.8 billion giveaway we already fought off once.
And we know exactly who's positioned to do that.
Marilyn Dondero Loop voted for the Hollywood Handout in the 2025 special session. She's now Senate President Pro Tempore, the second most powerful Democrat in the Nevada Senate.
If she's reelected, she'll have both the motive and the muscle to turn GOED's “clean-up” bill into round two of the giveaway she already backed once.
Meanwhile, the real-world test case just played out in front of us.
The biggest, highest-pressure relocation decision in recent Hollywood history didn't put Nevada anywhere near the shortlist.
The sequel to the Hollywood Handout is still being written in Carson City. Whether Dondero Loop gets to hold the pen is up to Senate District 8 voters this November.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology may have been used in the research, writing, or production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
